The Health ministry said that the accident also injured 123 people with footage on the state broadcaster showing how one train had partly keeled over during the crash while medics were moving the dead and injured to ambulances.

Transport ministry officials said that the crash was likely caused by a malfunction in one train that brought it to a halt on the rails and the other train then crashed into it.

One train was heading from Cairo into the northern city of Alexandria and the other was departing from the canal city of Port Said, east of the capital, to Alexandria.

The dead and injured were initially placed on blankets next to the tracks that were in farmland on the outskirts of Alexandria while they waited for emergency services to arrive on the scene.